DramaWatch Weekly: Everyone and your mother

An extended family meets for a holiday meal in a space too small to comfortably contain them all.

A.L. Adams

The forced intimacy sparks spats, reveals secrets, and heightens the whole group’s awareness of their fragile humanity. It’s Thanksgiving Dinner. And it’s also The Humans, the play that opens at Artists Rep this week. (Preview performances are mostly sold out, but the rest of the run is fair game.)

Speaking of hard-to-get tickets, Hamilton‘s coming to Portland, and ticket sales open on Friday. (Everyone and your mother, sync your watches and watch the calendar.)

“Hamilton” tickets go on sale Friday. Photo: Joan Marcus

Remember a few weeks ago when I suggested you lend Hand2Mouth your houseplants? That was for Psychic Utopia, a well-researched and likely insightful homage to cults and communes created with contributing writer Andrea Stolowitz. It opens Thursday, and should be worth your time, whether or not your ficus is set to make a cameo.

“Belfast Girls” are on the move. Jan Baross sketch

One more opening this week is Belfast Girls, presented by Portland’s Irish theater company Corrib, in the Shaking The Tree space. Five women emigrate from Ireland to Australia to escape famine. The harrowing circumstances reveal larger (and sometimes ugly) universal truths.

Backfence PDX’s vorpal blade will go snickersnack with a set of knife-themed stories from local luminaries, perhaps most notably including actor Lauren Modica, who’s just triumphantly returned from performing in Oregon Shakespeare Festival to tear it up in PCS’s Twist Your Dickens. With a cop father and an all-around unique life experience, we’re guessing Modica has a pretty piercing knife story to share.

And speaking of PCS, Chris Coleman, Portland Center Stage’s artistic director of 17 years, has just announced he’ll be leaving the Armory for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts at the end of this season. He’ll undoubtedly be missed here and welcomed there.

Chris Coleman. Photo: Portland Center Stage

In a scattershot pre-holiday week, is there anything we’re missing? Feel free to comment below.